A common misunderstanding by those who have never experienced it themselves, or know someone who has been incarcerated.
Compared to the homeless though...at least they are fed daily and given medical attention when required.

No misunderstanding on my part. I worked as a Detention Officer for the county jail for two years.

iRV2.com RV Community - Are you about to start a new improvement on your RV or need some help with some maintenance? Do you need advice on what products to buy? Or maybe you can give others some advice? No matter where you fit in you'll find that iRV2 is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with other RV owners, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create an RV blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

We had just bought our first camper and were taking a vacation out to the Midwest. My son and I traveled to St Louis and we stopped there to pick up my wife, who was flying in to meet us. Chose Horseshoe Lake State park campground, it was conveniently located across the river in Illinois and it looked OK. I unhitched and left the camper there. When we returned the door was open. Funny, I didn't think I left the door open!

Well, it had been broken into. Ripped the deadbolt right off. Other than the $300 damage to the door, fortunately the only thing they stole was a bag containing our son's clothes. We replaced the clothes and enjoyed the rest of the trip, stopping at R-Vision in Warsaw IN to pick up the new door.

Who would have thought that this would occur in a State Park, but it turns out the campground did not have a very good reputation. According to the police there was frequent non-camper traffic through the camping section and they were having issues with them.

The only time we had anything taken from a campsite was on a holiday weekend. We went to breakfast, and when we came back the outside cooler full of beverages was missing. We passed our neighbors pulling out as we were returning and waved to them. Then we figured out they were likely the culprits. All in all it seems most people are reputable. And never before or after has anyone messed with anything at our site. You know, people leave their fancy grills and chairs and toys of varying design laying unattended at their sites all the time. It would be a perfect place for thieves to shop, but I never hear of thefts of the easy stuff. I believe in the "honor among campers".

Many years ago when I was camping, really camping, with an army cot, a sleeping bag, and a cooler I was awaken by my dog, who was tied to the army cot leg, doing a low growl. I noticed some people walking on the road but rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning the neighbors were discovering their coolers were missing. Mine wasn't. I guess the dog's growl changed the perpetrator's mind. I imagine I would have had a rude awakening if she had been more aggressive and tried to give chase.

My new TT and several others were broken into at a storage facility a couple months ago. It was in a decent part of town, well lit, fenced, security cameras, code to get in, etc.

They climbed on the room broke through the skylight, climbed down and unlock the door. Must have had a group of kids or very skinny people doing this as that skylight is not big at all.

They stole a Flat screen, a dvd player, and ate 2 cans of soup in my trailers and left the empty cans.

Had they ate the soup and stole only the food, I would probably may have had some compassion for them.

But I guess they planned on eating my flat screen and several others including the 2 40" they stole from the 5ver next to mine.

I do not have any pity on these punks, had they fallen off the tops of one of the RV's and hit the concrete hurting themself, and been there in the morning because both legs were broken and couldn't get away so the cops could have arrested them would not have bothered me in the least bit.

The police who took the report point blank stated they will never catch them for this unless they caught them in the act elsewhere.

I now have my TT in a totally enclosed storage unit at a different place with an older Cajun couple who watches the property. Each time I have gone by to either put something in the TT or whatever, they come out and say the seen us on the cameras and wanted to make sure everything was ok. I have no doubt they probably have a peacemaker with them when they come out and check on their property. Yes it cost some money ($135 per month) but I don't have the space to store it at my house. Plus it is completely out of the weather and plenty big enough to store some of the wifes junk as well so killing 2 birds with one stone.

There have been thefts from the RV park we are staying in now, but only bycicles, and only the ones that are locked, because they have more value ($1,000 - $5,000 reported). The bikes everyone leaves out unlocked are not taken because they don't have much value.

After the thefts at our camera secured + onsite 7x24 employee storage facility where I was lucky enough to not have ours broken into unlike our neighbors, I decided to remove the flatscreen TV and all electronics after each trip. The in dash stereo already has a removable face plate (removed). It's tempting to add a sign stating "nothing of petty theft value inside" but I suppose that might make it MORE likely to be broken into. . My best option appears to be that there are nicer Class A's next to my plain Class C.

At the stick & bricks we always had our front lights on at night. The local police stated that its all about making your place/item less appealing than the next guy. It's kind of like spending time in the forest. If you encounter a bear, you only need to be faster than the slowest person in your hiking party.

There have been thefts from the RV park we are staying in now, but only bycicles, and only the ones that are locked, because they have more value ($1,000 - $5,000 reported). The bikes everyone leaves out unlocked are not taken because they don't have much value.

Well it seems like most of these break-ins are unrelated to actual campsites. Storage places seem to be the area to watch out for. And it also sounds like the blame is not on neighboring campers, but cruisers from the "outside". So the safest places must be those with gate attendants or locked gates at the entrance. Parks with some kind of restricted access would be safest.